nursemaid."

"Father!"

"I mean what I say."

"You won't give your consent?"

"Never!"

"Then— I'll do it without, after next month."

There was a tense moment of silence. Father and son faced each other, angry resentment in their eyes. Then, with a sharp ejaculation, John Denby got to his feet and strode to the window. When he turned a minute later and came back, the angry resentment was gone. His mouth was stern, but his eyes were pleading. He came straight to his son and put both hands on his shoulders.

"Burke, listen to me," he begged. "I'm doing this for two reasons. First, to save you from yourself. You've known this girl scarcely two weeks—hardly an adequate preparation for a lifetime of living together. And just here comes in the second reason. However good and lovely she may be, she couldn't possibly qualify for that long lifetime together, Burke. Simply because she works for her living has nothing to do with it. She has not the tastes or the training that should belong to your wife—that must belong to your wife if she is to make you happy, if she is to take the place of—your mother. And that is the place your wife will take, of course, Burke."

Under the restraining hands on his shoulders the boy stirred restlessly.

"Tastes! Training! What do I care for that? She suits my tastes."

"She wouldn't—for long."

"You wait and see."

"Too great a risk to run, my boy."

"I'll risk it. I'm going to risk it."

Again there was a moment's silence. Again the stern lines deepened around the man's lips. Then very quietly there came the words:—

"Burke, if you marry this girl, you will choose between her and me. It seems to me that I ought not to need to tell you that you cannot bring her here. She shall never occupy your mother's chair as the mistress of this house."

"That settles it, then: I'll take her somewhere else."

If Burke had not been so blind with passion he would have seen and felt the anguish that leaped to his father's eyes. But he did not stop to see or to feel. He snapped out the words, jerked himself free, and left the room.

This did not "settle it," however. There were more words—words common to stern parents and amorous youths and maidens since time immemorial. A father, appalled at the catastrophe that threatened, not only his cherished companionship with his only son, but, in his opinion, the revered sanctity of his wife's memory, wrapped himself in forbidding dignity. An impetuous lover, torn between the old love of years and the new, quite different one of weeks, alternately stormed and pleaded. A young girl, undisciplined, very much in love, and smarting with hurt pride and resentment, blew hot and cold in a manner that tended to drive every one concerned to distraction. As soon as possible a shocked, distressed Sister Eunice packed her trunks and betook herself and her offending household away.

In time, then, a compromise was effected. Burke should leave college immediately and go into the Works with his father, serving a short apprenticeship from the bottom up, as had been planned for him, that he might be the master of the business, in deed as well as in name, when he should some day take his father's place. Meanwhile, for one year, he was not to see or to communicate with Helen Barnet. If at the end of the year, he was still convinced that his only hope of happiness lay in marriage to this girl, all opposition would be withdrawn and he might marry when he pleased—though even then he must not expect to bring his bride to the old home. They must set up an establishment for themselves.

"We should prefer that,—under the circumstances," had been the prompt and somewhat haughty rejoinder, much to the father's discomfiture.

Grieved and dismayed as he was at the airy indifference with which his son appeared to face a fatherless future, John Denby was yet pinning his faith on that year of waiting. Given twelve months with the boy quite to himself, free from the hateful spell of this designing young woman, and there could be no question of the result—in John Denby's mind. In all confidence, therefore, and with every sense alert to make this year as perfect as a year could be, John Denby set himself to the task before him.

It was just here, however, that for John Denby the ghosts walked—ghosts of innumerable toy pistols and frosted cakes. Burke Denby, accustomed all his life to having what he wanted, and having it when he wanted it, moped the first week, sulked the second, covertly rebelled the third, and ran away the last day of the fourth, leaving behind him the customary note, which, in this case, read:—